Theo LOEVENDIE
Gassir, the Hero Opera in One Act
Claron McFadden/Roger
Smeets/Christopher Gillett/Timothy Wilson/Robert Poulton/Lieuwe Visser
Asko Ensemble/David Porcelijn
Donemus Composers' Voice
CV 35 [34.30]
AmazonUS
$18.97
AmazonUK
£16.99
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1. Scene 1: The
Sons
2. Scene 2: The Hero
3. Scene 3: The Partridge
4. Scene 4: The Ceremony
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5. Scene 5: The Lute
6. Scene 6: The Loss
7. Scene 7: The Song
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This concise moral one-acter is based on an African folk tale about a great
warrior who was urged to relinquish his triumphalism after a famous victory
by a miraculous Partridge, who later becomes a Priestess (both parts ideal
for the stratospheric soprano Claron
McFadden - known in UK for her collaboration with Birtwistle and
as the Airport Controller in Flight by Jonathan Dove at Glyndebourne).
The hero Gassir (Robert Poulton) is persuaded to take a lute with
him to the next battle by a wise blacksmith (!) - Lieuwe Visser -
who had made it. In the battle he loses his sons one by one, but the lute
sang of their deeds and that song lives forever.
This is a live recording of the Pierre Audi production at De
Nederlandse Opera. It is sung in English and the texts are given clearly
and in full - helpfully so, because there are ensembles in which different
characters voice their feelings all together, as in the famous operatic ensembles
of old. Despite its brevity, it makes a powerful and enduring impression.
The presentation is lavish for such a short work. The booklet gives a fascinating
series of extracts from interviews with Theo, who describes how he began
to compose secretly from early childhood - it was not the thing to do. He
composes largely intuitively and is uninterested in the 'tonal-atonal contrast'.
In Gassir, Loevendie employs Turkish heterophony and his own 'curve
technique' based on enlarging or reducing intervals. It is noisy and dramatic
at first, but soon settles down. To quote the detailed biography of this
important composer in New Grove 2nd Edition:
in - - - the chamber opera Gassir, the Hero - -
rhythm and melodic cyclic structures related to Turkish and Arabic music
have also come to play an important role. These structures and their connected
principle of 'non-octave modes' can be tracked back to the 'curve technique'
with which Loevendie - - diverted his attention from rhythmic to pitch
organization. Curve technique, unlike serialism, is not a closed system,
but a flexible approach to systematic musical thought, which leaves ample
latitude for the intuitive and the improvised. In its simplest form it consists
of a basic melodic or melodic-rhythmic idea that is maintained throughout
a work. This basic thought may be stretched and enlarged, compressed and
reduced in such a way that its curve and the inherent relationships between
the notes are preserved. - - In Gassir, the Hero, a stack of curves gives
rise to a mode which is repeated, not at the octave but at other intervals.
- - -
Cost should not be an over-riding concern, but purchasers are bound to be
given pause by the price, which Amazon UK had confirmed was correct at
£18.99, but have subsequently reduced it as above.
Peter Grahame Woolf
